The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for observing the ground contact patch of a tire.
In order to improve tire performance factors such as steering stability, vehicle fuel consumption and wear resistance, it is very important to be able to effectively analyze the ground contact patch of a running tire.
However, it is very hard to see directly and in detail the state of a ground contact patch of a running tire with conventional technology. It is particularly difficult with camber angle and/or slip angle applied to the tire.
The ground contact patch of a tire has been observed indirectly by painting the tire surface, with, for example black paint, and pressing the tire surface to transfer the ground contact patch pattern onto a drawing board.
With such a conventional method of observing ground contact patch of a tire by mean of a transfer, it is still impossible to obtain the ground contact patch pattern of a running tire applied with a slip angle and to observe siping behavior which only occurs when the tire is moving.
An object of the present invention is to provide an observation apparatus and method capable of directly and visually observing the dynamic behavior of the ground contact patch of a tire.